monopolistic, or oligopolistic type of bargaining characteristic of corporatist
systems that would effectively prevent the development of a middle class, which
is the main stabilizer of any state. One can hardly expect any level of stability,
anchored in sustained economic development, in countries that have succumbed
to the trends discussed here. At best, Eastern Europe will become like Latin
America, not Western Europe or North America. At the least, the Lithuanian
precedent casts doubt on the ability and willingness of the post-Communist
governments to resist special interests and other such temptations and to continue the radical transformation toward competitive markets that will benefit the
society at large. Still, there is a hope that governments and voters all over the
former Communist world will draw appropriate conclusions from Lithuania's
post-Communist detour on the road from a planned to a market economy. Since Lithuania was the first country to take such a detour, it is hoped that it will be
the first to return from it.

NOTE

Research on this study was supported, in part, by a grant from the Center for Social
and Economic Research, Warsaw.

REFERENCES

Abisala A. ( 1993, March 2). "Issues in the Post-Soviet Transformation in the Baltics: The
Case of Lithuania". Paper presented at a seminar of the Centre for Russian and
East European Studies, University of Toronto.

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